


Beautiful and Strange

by Kattlupin



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe - Magic, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Mystery, and a new world of magic, some werewolf stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:47:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22807324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kattlupin/pseuds/Kattlupin
Summary: Stuck in a rut and feeling like everyone he knows is moving on without him, Sirius meets the mysterious Remus Lupin who introduces him to a world of magic he never knew existed.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 21
Kudos: 72





	Beautiful and Strange

The sound of incessant pounding at my door is what finally gets me out of bed. I know it’s James without even looking through the peephole. He’s the only person who ever comes here, except maybe Peter, but he’s off honeymooning in the Canary Islands with Mary, so it can’t be him. Besides, as much as Peter and I are friends, James is the only one who really cares about me. It’s been that way since we were teenagers. The two of us had always made quite the pair at school, pulling pranks and getting into trouble, almost getting ourselves expelled from our posh boarding school on more than one occasion. 

He’s like family to me, or at least he was until Lily came along. And now that they’re married with a kid on the way, I’m not really sure where it is that I fit into the equation that is James Potter’s life. Even these check-in visits that he does on occasion, have become less frequent. I wonder if I've become more of an obligation to him than a brother in everything but blood.

“Hey James,” I say as I open the front door and let him in along with a cold gust of winter air. I shut the door quickly behind him. 

“You didn’t just wake up did you?” James asks and looks me up and down. He raises a questioning eyebrow at me, one that I used to associate with mischief but now just feels like judgment. That raised eyebrow bears a striking resemblance to the one our old headmistress Minerva McGonagall used to give us after a wholly impressive prank. 

“No,” I lie. But it’s only a half-lie. I’ve been living in that half-awake, half-asleep existence for the last two hours, maybe more. Who knows anymore. My entire world has felt like nothing but a lucid dream for ages. My guess is that it’s starting to show.

“Well you look like shit,” James proclaims. “When was the last time you went to bed before dawn?”

“I don’t stay up late every night, you know.” Another lie. And judging by the look on James’s face, he knows it.

He steps into my kitchen and begins to fill the kettle with water. “When are you going to grow up, Sirius?”

I roll my eyes at him. “I’m perfectly grown-up. I have a flat, I pay my bills on time, I’ve managed to keep a job for the last five years and I haven’t killed any of my house plants.”

“Tending bar three nights a week at Divination isn’t exactly holding a job, I don’t care how much money your Uncle Alphard gave you,” he pauses and looks over my shoulder, “And that philodendron has seen better days.” 

I turn to look at the plant in question. It is indeed, dead. “Fuck.”

“Exactly,” James says pointedly. “Look, I’m not trying to be an ass here Sirius. You’re my brother and that means I worry about you. Lily too.”

“I doubt that,” I say raising one of my eyebrows at him this time and not believing for even one second that Lily is worried about me. We’ve barely spoken since she and James announced they were pregnant at New Years a few weeks back. Well, announced isn’t the right word. I’d sort of forced the issue when I noticed she wasn’t drinking and made the off-color joke about her being pregnant in front of everybody, just for that to be the case and for me to be even more appalled by it.

“She does,” James says again. “And she’s not nearly as mad at you anymore as she was. But you’ve got to get it together.”

“I am together,” I argue in my defense as the tea kettle begins to whistle. In an effort to prove myself as together, I push James out of the way and turn the burner under the kettle down. I open the cabinet to grab us each a mug, just to find it empty. I hear the water running in the sink beside me and look to see James cleaning two mugs with a smug look on his face.

_____

  
  


I don’t know if it was the visit from James and the subsequent conversation, but heading into work tonight, I’m feeling less than enthused. Some might even call it defeated. 

This isn’t how I wanted my life to go. I mean, I didn’t want to end up like James, working for his father’s hair product conglomerate and married with a kid on the way by twenty-five, but working at a bar after studying music at uni wasn’t really the plan either. I guess I was hoping for something in-between. An exciting job where I could be immersed in music and constantly going to shows and finding new talent, with a beautiful boy or girl hanging on my arm. I don’t want the desk or the nine-to-five or the squalling child with nappy changes. Just someone who can open my eyes to something new, and a career path more in-line with what I dreamed. But as I’m finding out, things hardly ever go according to plan. (Unless you’re James Potter, everything goes according to his plan.)

And I guess that’s what really dug under my skin about his little lecture today. He has no real understanding of what it’s like to struggle. Which to be fair, I didn’t either for the first two-thirds of my life. But these last few years have been anything other than a walk in the park. No matter what James chooses to do, it always works out fine. More than fine. I think the biggest struggle he’s ever truly faced was getting Lily to fall for him— and how hard is that when you have a trust fund, an endless supply of good looks and the world at your fingertips? Granted, there was a time when I had all of that as well, but after years of family strife and the inevitable severing of ties that comes with dysfunction, all I’ve been left to work with is my looks and a small inheritance left to me by my wayward uncle, who was cast out of the family in a similar fashion to myself. 

So to say that I am bitter as I smoke this final cigarette before I step inside Divination for my shift is an understatement. I stand under the awning to shield myself from the snow beginning to fall and take a deep drag, let the smoke fill my lungs and close my eyes to briefly dream of a different life, something truly fantastic. 

I reopen my eyes and let it all out, the plume of stale smoke obscures my vision. And whether it’s the smoke or my lack of a real night's sleep for weeks, something seems to rip through the fabric of reality across the street. Suddenly, out of nowhere, there's a man standing where there wasn’t one before. He looks to be around my age but softer, slighter, and smaller. He’s golden in skin and hair and even his eyes seem to glow as he peers at me from where he stands. He’s ethereal and otherworldly and the streetlight shines down on him as if it’s pointing me towards home.

He bites at his lower lip and tilts his head to the side, practically beckoning me over. I take another drag of my cigarette and stub it out on the heel of my boot. When I look up to walk towards him, he’s gone.

_____

  
  


Emerging from Divination at the end of the night is always an adjustment. To go from the loud thumping music and flashing lights, to the calm and quiet moment when night begins to transition into day, is always startling to the senses. It’s also probably my favorite part of every day when I’m around to catch it. 

I light a cigarette and lean up against the wall beneath the awning. I let the smoke and the cold morning air mix together and mingle with the last snowflakes that the wind is blowing from the rooftops. I look toward the spot where I had spotted the man before my shift had started. Thoughts of him had swirled around my mind throughout the course of my entire shift, similar to how these snowflakes have probably been swirling all night under the obscured glow of the full moon. For whatever reason, I could not seem to shake him. He was striking and beautiful and all-around mysterious in that brief moment that I saw him, and a large part of me is hoping for another glimpse so that I can reassure myself that he wasn’t a figment of my imagination.

I keep my eyes focused on the place where he briefly appeared. The streetlight is still shining down on the area, but the sun is creeping up over the horizon to the east as it trades places with the full moon reflecting a pinkish hue to the west. It makes the lighting far less dramatic than it was at the beginning of the night and it allows me a better view of the entire area. From where I stand and observe the place I can see an empty patch in the light dusting of snow. It shouldn’t be there. 

Curious about the missing snow on the sidewalk, I walk across the street. It’s right where he was standing, and large enough for maybe two people to fit in. Looking at it closer, it’s not just the sidewalk that is devoid of the snow, but even this little strip of the building seems to be dry and unaffected. The brick is slightly different, off by just a shade in color and texture, as if it was put here at a separate time from the rest of the building. This isn’t that uncommon in a city as old as London, but this isn’t quite the same. It almost looks like it was put up to cover a door. I try to find a seam. Maybe there’s a hidden entrance behind this wall, like some sort of mock American Speakeasy. Someplace where the mysterious man could’ve slipped away. 

But there’s nothing. Not a seam or a crack or even a peephole. I furrow my brow and take one last drag off of my cigarette before I flick it to the ground and look down to where it landed, expecting to see it nestled and dying within the thin layer of white snow beside where I'm standing. Instead, it sits in something vibrant and red. A round spot surrounded by a smattering of other splashes of what is unmistakable blood. 

Looking up and further away, I see that it makes a sort of trail, one that either stops or starts on the spot that I am standing. There are no footprints or other markings, just the blood with no indicators of where it might have come from. From behind me, I suddenly hear what sounds like howling. I spin around to look in the direction of the noise and see nothing but the moon at the moment it disappears for the day. 

Maybe James is right. It would probably do me good to get a proper night's rest. 

_____

  
  


The light streaming in through my bedroom window when I wake up the next day tells me that it’s early in the morning but I feel well-rested for the first time in ages. It’s been forever since I’ve seen this hour at the beginning of my day instead of the tail end of it and I’m not sure what it is that I’m supposed to do. Get up and make coffee I guess. 

The hardwood is cold under my bare feet as I move around my apartment from my bedroom to my kitchen. I open the cabinet to pull out the coffee just to find that the can is empty aside from a few grounds. I leave it on the countertop and close the cabinet door with James Potter’s smug expression from the other day flashing in my mind. I can almost hear him telling me to grow up and get my life together as if never running out of coffee is a true sign of one's shit life being in order. But it’s fine, who needs coffee when there’s a cafe on practically every other corner of London? I’ll just go out for breakfast, it’s not as if I have anything other than leftover takeaway in the icebox to eat anyway.

Once outside, I see that the snow that had fallen two nights previously has melted and the sun has come out to dry the streets. It’s still a bit cold, but all in all, it’s a good day to take a ride on the motorbike, and since it’s one of my days off, I decide to indulge. I wrap my scarf tightly around my neck and chin, zip my leather jacket all the way up and throw on a pair of fingerless gloves. My hands will be cold, but I’ll have a good grip. 

The bike roars to life with a twist of the throttle and two quick kicks on the start. It sounds eager to be ridden and ready to conquer the cold streets. It rumbles underneath me as it warms up and I drop my sunglasses down off the top of my head to rest on the bridge of my nose to protect my eyes from the crisp wind. With the heel of my boot, I push the kickstand out of the way and put the bike into gear in one swift, practiced, motion. My hand twists the throttle and I take off down the road with no real destination in mind, just the promise of breakfast and a warm cup of coffee when I find a place to land.

The streets are relatively empty, not full of the morning commuter rush yet and I think I quite like it. Being on the motorbike, you get to see things differently than from any other form of travel. You need to be alert and take in all of your surroundings to anticipate any potential dangers or unknowns that might jump out at you. With the streets quiet like they currently are, I can just enjoy the ride and look around taking in the sights, the mix of old and new architecture, the outdoor art installations and the other people who are starting their days, most of which are dressed for service, working the opposite side of the industry that I do.

I slow to take a turn at the upcoming corner and I have to hit the brakes completely as the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen crosses the street in front of me. It takes me a beat before I realize that it’s the man from across the way the other night. He stops and bites his lip just as he’d done before, then offers me a coy smile. All I can do is smile back, too shocked by his sudden appearance to say anything. He gives me a little wink, then continues on his way. I watch him open up the door to a cafe that’s tucked inconspicuously between two retailers, ‘The Leaky Cauldron’ the sign says. I park my bike, turn the engine off and follow in behind him like a satellite tied to his gravity.

_____

  
  


Walking into the Leaky Cauldron feels almost as if I’ve stepped into another world, or another time, or maybe both. And if I’m not mistaken, it feels like everyone inside has stopped what they are doing to look me over, but not in the way that I am used to. 

I hesitate and debate leaving as I scan my surroundings. The cafe is uncommonly full for this time of day and, if it was a regular after-hours destination, I would’ve already known about it. It’s disconcerting and for whatever reason, I can’t shake the feeling that I am severely out of place. I should go. I’m not welcome here. I take a step back to leave and I’m startled by a steadying hand placed onto my lower back.

“Care to join me?” A voice as smooth as golden honey, and just as sweet, asks from behind me. 

I turn knowing exactly who I’m going to see. That voice can only belong to one person, and it calls to me like a siren, beckoning me home like the streetlight that had shone down on him the other night. When I lock eyes with him, my heart clenches in my chest and renders me almost speechless, but I still manage to get out the words. “I’d like that.”

He nods his head and gestures for me to follow him. He moves like silk billowing in the breeze, light and almost liquid. It’s tantalizing to the senses, and like a kid who can’t control his impulses, I reach to touch him, but stop myself before I do. For even though he touched me first, there’s something so sacred about him that I want to be able to hold him near and dear when I do. He gestures for me to take a seat at the booth all the way in the back then sits across from me and grabs the steaming mug of black tea in front of him and takes a slow sip. He waves his hand at a mug in front of me and the smell of rich coffee wafts up to my nose. 

I’m taken aback by the sudden smell and look down to see a mug full and steaming with coffee and just the right amount of cream. I grab it and very slowly bring it to my lips, my eyes moving to make contact with his again. He watches me intently as I take a sip, and I can’t decipher if it’s the warmth of the coffee or the warmth in his eyes that reaches me deep within my soul and makes it bloom. Perfect, I think - and I’m thinking about him. 

“Who are you?” I ask, holding the mug close to my chest. 

He looks at me with curiosity, and I realize how ridiculous I must look. I’m still in my coat, scarf and gloves, and clutching a mug of coffee close to my chest as if I’m holding a precious jewel. I put the mug down and shrug off my layers like I’m shedding skin and laying myself more bare to him. 

“I’m Remus Lupin,” he says while reaching a hand across the table for me to shake.

“Sirius Black,” I say as I take ahold of his hand. My breath hitches when we touch, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say that the lights glowed a little brighter around us. And maybe they did, everything inside of this place has been slightly askew to what one would call normal. It’s strange in the smallest of ways, just enough to keep me a bit on guard. 

“Nice to meet you, Sirius.” He lets go of my hand and I miss his touch. I can feel the ghost of his palm against mine. 

“I saw you the other night and then it was like you disappeared. And now, here you are again.”

“Hmmm,” he says and sips his tea. “You weren’t meant to see me then.”

I lean forward more towards him. “What do you mean?”

His lips pull to one side as if he’s contemplating his next words carefully. “It was not a good time for me to meet someone new.”

“And now is? A good time, I mean,” I say, still completely confused.

He shrugs but his lips shift to form a full smile. “I’m far less pressed for time today than I was two nights ago.”

“Were you late for your shift as well?”

“Something like that,” he says, and I feel like I’m missing the joke.

I’m about to ask him what he means when we’re interrupted by the arrival of a woman who’s heavily shrouded in black and quiet on her feet despite the black patent leather stiletto thigh-high boots that are elevating her to an almost inhuman height. She wordlessly places food down onto the table, and just like the coffee, the plate that sits before me is exactly what I would have ordered— fried eggs over a mix of vegetables and an english muffin slathered in cranberry jelly on the side. My eyes open wide at the food, not sure if I’m supposed to eat something I hadn’t actually ordered despite it being exactly what I would. 

“Please, eat,” Remus says and digs into his own food.

_____

  
  


After a few bites of my meal, I realize just how hungry I am. When was the last time I even ate a proper meal? It feels like it’s been ages, and it probably has been. I used to be able to count on James for regular meals out, but now he prefers to spend his dinner time with Lily and I’m pretty sure I’ve worn out my welcome there. Though eating now, I realize that it’s time for me to make amends. Or maybe it’s time for me to find a new dinner companion. Remus definitely seems like he’d be a nice choice of company.

“What is this place?” I ask between another bite of food and a drink of my coffee.

“The Leaky Cauldron,” he says cheekily.

“I know that,” I say. “It’s just that I've never been here before, let alone heard of it. And I’m a bit of an aficionado of London haunts and places to eat as good as here.” I take another bite of my breakfast and he laughs at my words. “What’s so funny?”

“This is definitely a local haunt,” he says, his eyes twinkling with the mirth of his laughter. And again I seem to be missing the joke. “And I’m not surprised that you’ve never heard of it. The Leaky Cauldron is a bit…” he pauses and furrows his brow in thought, “... exclusive.”

This makes me laugh. It’s just a cafe, there’s never anything exclusive about a cafe. It’s harder for someone to get into Divination than it was for me to get in here. I just walked right in. But I pause before I say anything else and take a look at my surroundings again. There is something off about this place as if it’s squeezed between two different worlds, just like its squeezed between two separate storefronts. The patrons are all a bit odd as well, and none of them wear the air of exclusivity like the posh crowd I am used to serving at Divination. The crowd that I used to be a part of before my disownment from the Noble and Ancient House of Black. 

“How is this place exclusive?” I ask.

“Well, to start not everybody can come in here,” Remus says with a shrug of his shoulder and a knowing smirk. 

“There isn’t even anybody at the door,” I say, completely confused, and look over my shoulder towards the entrance.

“There doesn’t need to be,” he says and sits back against his seat. “One just needs to be shown the way inside.”

“Shown the way? Is that what you’ve done for me?”

“Yes,” Remus says and blushes as he looks down at his lap. “But I didn’t mean to.”

“I’m so lost,” I say because I truly am. Not just in this conversation, but in life as well and this breakfast for whatever reason is bringing that feeling heavily to the forefront of my mind.

He leans forward and takes one of my hands within both of his. “I’ll explain over time,” he says with a moment's hesitation as if he is making a life-altering decision, though I’m not sure if he’s altering my life or his own. He gives my hand a gentle squeeze. “What are you doing right now?”

“Spending time with you, I hope.”

He smiles at me and nods his head. “Good, that’s what I was hoping for as well.”

_____

  
  


Remus rises from his seat and I follow his lead. He takes a nervous glance over his shoulder as if he’s looking for a back exit or for someone else to appear. When he looks back at me, he grabs my hand and pulls me towards the front of the cafe. His grip is light and hesitant, almost like he’s trying to hide that he is doing it. Which maybe he is. Nothing about the crowd at the Leaky Cauldron has given any clues that they are comfortable with two blokes holding hands. Not that I care. I was tossed from my family for just such a thing, and getting tossed from a cafe is nothing compared to that. 

We stop at the counter by the door to pay our bill and I reach into my back pocket for my wallet. He stops me as I begin to unfold it and remove a few notes. 

“Your money’s no good here,” he says.

“Thank you,” I say and smile at him for his generosity.

He laughs and subtly shakes his head at me, then places a few unrecognizable coins into the outstretched palm of the woman’s hand behind the counter and thanks her. She gives him a stern look, like a silent reprimand, then looks me up and down as if she is committing me to memory. My initial feeling of being un-welcomed here is brought back to the forefront of my mind.

For whatever reason, the world seems different to me when we step outside, but I can’t pinpoint what it is. It’s as if my senses have been dulled. Colors don’t seem as bright, sounds are less sharp, smells aren’t quite as distinct. But Remus is just as lovely as he was inside. Possibly even more so with the sunlight shining down on him, or more accurately through him. He radiates like a gold gilded statue, like something not of this time or this world. 

“How old are you?” I ask him, the words tumbling out of my mouth before I can stop them.

“Twenty-five this March,” he says as he pulls a knit cap out of his pocket and places it on his head. A few of his golden curls whirl out around the edges, hallowing his face.

“March is only a few weeks away.”

“The tenth to be exact. You looking to buy me a birthday present already?” he asks and gives me a skeptical look.

“No,” I say, then correct, “Unless you want me to?”

“Let’s get through today first, we can worry about birthdays later.” 

He places his hands into his coat pocket and begins walking towards where my motorbike is parked. He stops when he reaches it.

“Are we saying goodbye already?” I ask, feeling truly dejected as I thought it was implied that we would be spending more time together.

“No, I was hoping you would take me for a ride. I’ve never been on one of these before.” He reaches out a hand and lightly traces the curve of the gas tank with his fingers, a smile that matches the curves of the bike pulls at his lips. 

“I’d love to take you for a ride,” I say with the confidence that rises through me at the suggestion. Motorbike rides are familiar territory for me and I’m happy for the prospect of being able to show Remus something he is unfamiliar with. A flip from the way that everything else has been going since I first saw him two nights ago. 

I walk up to the bike and step my right leg over it to straddle it between my legs and sit. I turn slightly to reach the seat behind me, I pat it three times with my right hand and say, “Hop on.”

He holds my shoulders and hoists himself onto the back of the bike. When I feel him sit behind me, I hit the kickstart and the engine roars back to life. I look over my shoulder to smile at him and make sure that he’s on okay. He’s grinning from ear to ear, and the knit cap he was wearing seems to have somehow managed to harden in texture and take on the form of a helmet. He winks at me, then slides on a pair of sunglasses. I drop mine from my head as I shake it, trying to figure out how it is that Remus manages to continue to be so surprising.

_____

  
  


“So, Remus Lupin, where would you like to go?” I ask as I put the motorbike into gear, pull out of where I am parked and merge onto the street. The movement of the bike causes him to slide closer to me on the seat and his hands clasp a little tighter around my waist. The intimacy of it causes my whole being to bloom with warmth. 

“Anywhere,” he says over my shoulder, his voice like a heavenly whisper against my ear. “I’d like to make the most out of this ride. Who knows if I’ll ever get the chance to be on another motorbike.”

“Are you implying that you wouldn’t enjoy seeing me again?”

“No,” he laughs. “I’d like very much to see you again. It’s your continued interest in me that I am more worried about.”

I frown at his words. I know I’ve only just met him, but there’s something about Remus that I am inexplicably drawn to already. I’d like nothing more than to be able to see him again. I decide to express this to him. “I don’t think you need to worry about that.”

“Is that so?” he asks and gives me a not so subtle squeeze around my torso.

“Yes,” I laugh, unable to help myself with the giddiness I feel caused by our close proximity. “I think I quite like you.”

“Fancying me already, huh?” he teases.

“You can say that,” I say and I’m not afraid to admit it. Ever since he caught my eye a few nights back, even if it was for only two brief captivating breaths, I have no choice but to admit he’s caught my attention. Our serendipitous meeting this morning and the breakfast that we shared has only worked to confirm my attraction to this beautiful and strange man behind me. I’d be a fool to ignore the way that he pulls at me. 

“You don’t even know me,” he says and there’s a hint of trepidation in his voice.

“I could argue the same,” I try to reason.

“Yes,” he says with a sigh, “but I’m afraid we come from different worlds, we may not understand each other.”

And there it is. We’ve only just begun our time together and he’s already made the unfair assumption that I’ve been trying to avoid my entire life, or more accurately, the life that I’ve led since the disownment from my family. I was hoping he hadn’t put two and two together about my name, but then again, how many rich and powerful families are there out there that give all of their offspring a celestial name with the surname of Black? The answer is only one.

“We’re not all like that,” I say in an accusatory and defensive way. I want him to realize that I am more than just my name and my estranged family. “I’m no longer a part of them anyway.”

“A part of who?” he asks, and I can hear the genuine confusion in his voice.

“The Blacks, my family,” I say a bit harshly and give the throttle an unnecessarily sharp twist, letting the whine of the engine emphasize my irritation. 

“Oh,” he says as if something is dawning on him for the first time. He leans closer to me, which I didn’t think was possible and it causes my heart rate to pick up but my nerves to calm down, then he clarifies, “It wasn’t your background that I was worried about.” 

I take my left hand off of the handlebar and bring it to where his hands are linked together and resting at my belly in an effort to assure him that whatever he thinks I’d judge him poorly for is nothing for him to give a second thought to. I let my thumb rub back and forth across the back of his skin and I can feel the smooth line of a scar that I hadn’t noticed before. I look down briefly at our hands to catch a glimpse of the scar that I feel there, but his skin is smooth and creamy and perfectly flawless. 

I give his hands a quick pat, then bring my left hand back to the handlebars. I take a deep breath and try to regather all five of my senses. What is it about being around Remus, that seems to make them all stop working together?

_____

  
  


Intent on paying him back for the breakfast that he paid for this morning, I insist that we stop at my favorite spot for an afternoon curry. “ _Your_ money's no good here,” I joke this time and smile at him, even though I’m pretty sure that I am still missing the joke. “Go grab us a seat.”

I watch him walk towards and take a seat at one of the tables by the window. Again, his movements are light and fluid, almost animalistic, not quite the movements of a hunter, but not necessarily prey either. Either way, it’s captivating and I could watch him move forever. 

“Your order,” the man behind the counter says to me and I reluctantly turn to pay and grab our food. 

When I turn back around I notice that Remus is looking out the window wistfully, as if he’s lost in a world of his own making. I do that sometimes. Though I doubt I look as lovely when I’m doing it. For me, that dreamy state has always been more of a coping mechanism, a way to escape everyday life, a trick I picked up as a child and never let go of. But for Remus, as I watch him now, he doesn’t appear to be escaping, it’s more like he’s observing, taking in his surroundings and finding peace in the world. I wonder what that’s like?

“Here,” I say as I place his order in front of him. “Best curry in the city.”

“I don’t doubt that,” he says with a sincere smile and turning to look directly at me. 

He reaches his hand for mine and lightly grabs it with his fingertips. I watch as his slender fingers caress my hand and I try to find any trace of the scar I felt on his hand when I touched it earlier. I see nothing, just his flawless skin. I run my thumb over the area again and feel the ridge where the scar should be. My brow furrows and my lips pull together. 

“Is there something wrong?” he asks and laces our fingers together. 

“No.” I look at him and shake my head for emphasis, but also to clear it. “Nothings wrong.”

He lets go of my hand and takes a bite of his food, humming in contentment as he swallows. His cheeks bloom pink from the spices. “So what is it that you do, Sirius?”

“Nothing exciting. I’m a bartender. You?”

“I’m a bit of a jack of all trades, taking odd jobs here and there,” he says then looks back out the window. 

I follow his gaze to see if I can see what he sees, but I’m distracted by his reflection. Just like the mystery scar on his hand, there’s a matching one that runs across the bridge of his nose and another one that shyly peaks out of the collar of his shirt. I look directly at him again and they’re both missing. Shocked, I turn to look back at his reflection and there they are, plain as day. 

“Remus,” I say to grab his attention. He looks at me with the same soft serene smile on his face as before, it crinkles his nose and I think I see the faint outline of the scar that according to his reflection should be there. I reach to touch it and he doesn’t stop me. “Tell me about these.”

As if that question unlocked a door, similar to how the Leaky Cauldron just appeared, the scars I saw in the window are now visible in front of me. 

“Perhaps another day,” he says. “I have a bit of a sad tale and I’m not sure if you’re ready to hear it.”

And if I thought he was lovely before, it doesn’t compare to how he looks now. He’s breathtaking and tragic at the same time. 

_____

  
  


“Take a right up here,” he says and points towards the intersection we are approaching. “Then pull over, my place is just around the corner.”

I do as he says, though I wish I could freeze the moment as I’m not ready for my time with Remus Lupin to be done for the day. There’s an endless pile of questions that I still need answered on top of the fact that I like basking in his ethereal presence. If I was a singer, I could see him becoming my muse. 

He hesitates to get off of the motorbike when I park it against the curb in front of the building that he had directed me to. At first glance, I can understand the hesitation. This building looks as if it should be condemned and I hate the thought of him living here. 

“It’s nicer than it appears,” he says, seemingly reading my mind as he steps off of the bike slowly and carefully. 

I’m not sure if I believe him, but everything about Remus has been surprising to me today, there’s no reason why I should doubt that where he lives is just as lovely as he is. Though if that were the case, then I’m not sure why it is that every nerve in my body is telling me to flee and take Remus with me. There is something about this place that is screaming ‘not safe’. 

“I’d like to see you again,” Remus says, breaking me of my thoughts and worries for his safety. 

“I’d like that too.”

“Good.” He smiles coyly at me and reaches into his pocket. He pulls out a slip of paper and hands it to me. “Meet me here on Thursday, at around noon.”

I look at the paper, it’s just a street address with no other information attached to it. 

“What is it?” I ask.

“You’ll see when you get there,” he assures, then leans forward and presses a light kiss to my cheek. “Until next time Sirius Black.”

Too stunned to say anything, I watch him saunter away and open the front door with what looks like a wave of his hand instead of a key. Before he enters, he turns, bites his lip and gives me a wave with his fingers. My heart skips a beat as I wave back.

I wait until the door closes behind him before I kick the bike back into gear and drive away from the curb. I circle the block and look to see if the building he lives in looks more habitable from other angles. It doesn’t. If anything, it looks less so and the small groups of neighbors who are milling around all look quite menacing, like a pack of wolves stalking their prey. A flash of Remus’s mysterious scars crosses my mind and my stomach drops in worry that perhaps the other inhabitants of this place could’ve been the cause.

_____

  
  


Instead of going home, I decide that I need to see James immediately. My day with Remus has left me reeling and being somewhere with someone who knows me well is probably the best thing for me. Besides, I guess I am going to need to see and fully make up with Lily eventually. 

When I get there, James is more than a little surprised at my sudden arrival. Which I find ironic considering how often he just pops up at my place with little to no warning. But then again, I really can’t remember the last time that I came over here. Even the doorman felt the need to ask for my identification. 

“What’s going on, Sirius?” James asks me as he hands me a glass of whiskey neat. 

“I’ve met someone,” I say over the rim of my glass. 

“Really? Someone important enough to tell us about?” James says as he takes a seat on the sofa. I watch Lily prop her feet up onto his lap and he idly begins to give them a squeeze.

“I think so,” I say thoughtfully. “But he’s a bit of an enigma.”

“How so?” James asks.

“There’s something mysterious about him.”

“That is the definition of an enigma,” Lily says, fixing me with a skeptical gaze. I can tell she’s still wary of me even as she tries to be cordial. 

It’s a mark of how much of an effect that Remus has had on me that I don’t come back at her with a quick and snarky remark. Instead, I choose to smile and say, “More than mysterious. More like magical.”

“Magical?” Lily and James say together. Though Lily sounds intrigued and James sounds like he can’t believe what it is that he just heard.

“Yes, magical,” I say again. “I spent the day with him and it’s as if he showed me a world I have never seen before.”

Now it’s James that looks at me skeptically. “Who are you and what have you done with Sirius Black?”

“Isn’t this what you’ve been telling me to do? Grow up. Get my life together. Spend more than just a night with someone,” I say all of this in rapid succession, my tone accusatory.

He pulls his hands away from Lily’s feet and holds them up in mock defense. “Simmer down, Sirius.”

“I think it’s nice,” Lily mercifully says and I can hear the genuine sincerity in her voice. “What’s his name? How’d you meet him?”

“His name’s Remus, and I met him in sort of a strange way.”

“How so?” Lily encourages.

“Well, I saw him outside of Divination the other night and when I went to talk to him, he was gone. But then I randomly saw him this morning on the street, and we spent the day together.”

“Did he recognize you from the other night?” Lily asks. 

“He did,” I answer. “But he also seemed just as surprised to see me this morning as I was to see him.”

“And you spent the day with him?” James asks, his brow furrowed in thought.

“I did.”

“Did he say anything out of the ordinary to you?”

“I don’t know, everything about today seemed slightly out of the ordinary. Why do you ask?”

“It’s just, the name Remus, you don’t hear that very often,” James says his voice trailing off in thought.

“So?” I say. “Have you ran into a lot of Sirius’s in your lifetime?”

“No, you ass.” He glares at me and pauses. “But I did use to know a Remus when I was little.”

“What!?” I exclaim.

“Yeah, our fathers were friends. But then one day they disappeared. My dad was really broken up about it. I hardly remember anything about them, outside of the kids' name as it was so strange.”

“Remus said he had a tragic story. Do you remember what he looked like at all?” I can feel my heart picking up in anticipation.

James crinkles his face and thinks for what feels like an eternity. “It was years ago, way before even you and I met,” he finally says. “But I remember everything about him was gold.”

_____

  
  


Thursday feels as if it’s a lifetime away from now instead of only tomorrow. And now armed with the knowledge that James may have known Remus as a child, makes my excitement to see him again that much more palpable. I feel like I’m standing on the precipice of something, I’m just not sure what. Another life, an answer to all my questions about the way things should be, an explanation for all the oddities that I’ve experienced, not just with Remus but at every moment where I’ve felt like I’m just floating through my days. 

I’m so caught up in the mystery and fantasy that is Remus, replaying the events of our serendipitous meetings, the mystical elements that seem to surround him, the way the world seems to open up to him with just the wave of his hand or the tilt of his head. I should find it unnerving, but instead, it feels inviting. Like he’s the answer that I have been searching for. 

Now I’m not naive enough to fall into the trap of believing that he is the answer for everything to me, but he has lit a fire in me, something I haven't felt since the days after I left my family and gave up my claims to inheritance, lands, titles, all of it. It was freeing and my future felt optimistic despite the fact that I had given up everything that I knew. Everything that I was destined for. Once the dust had settled and the concept of being my own separate entity had really sunk in, that hopefulness slowly went away and left me feeling a bit hollow and cold. But meeting Remus, being in his presence and basking in his natural good and golden self, it causes that familiar burn to throw gas onto the match and really light things up, burn it down and rise fully as someone new. Or maybe just rise to my full potential. Because there is something about Remus that is already pushing me to be a better man. Pushing me to want more, do more and demand more of and for myself. 

But where do I even begin, I think as I pad around my flat and take in all of my surroundings as I get ready for work tonight. I suddenly see what it is that perhaps James sees when he comes over here to lecture me about the way that I am living. My flat is rather dull, despite the opulence of the address. It still looks like two nineteen-year-old Uni students live here. Nothing but a collection of mismatched furniture from second-hand stores and hand-me-downs from the Potters’ vast collection that they’d drop off whenever they felt like James wasn’t living comfortably enough. The two of us, along with Peter, had managed to pretty much destroy all of it, throwing wild parties in an eagerness to act like what we thought being an adult should be - an endless loop of parties and sex and the occasional drug. It was a way of life that we thought would last forever. 

Forever turned out to only be four years. James took to settling down like a duck to water and Peter, whom we all thought would never have any luck in love, latched onto the first female to ever pay him any attention. And from the moment the two of them made the choice to settle into the Norman Rockwell picture of domesticity. Well, suddenly their judgment towards me became far more harsh. Though now, looking at myself through a more critical lens, trying to see myself as how Remus might if he chooses to get to know me more, I can tell that some serious changes need to be made. 

_____

From behind the bar I toil away at mixing and pouring drinks for the usual crowd of seemingly soulless people who gather here to pretend that their life is anything but mundane. I watch as Kingsley leads another group of faux important partiers to the area behind the velvet rope and I laugh silently as they strut with self-importance, functioning under the assumption that paying for a table on the other side means anything other than a way to line the pockets more of our owner, Alastor Moody. Kingsley gives me a roll of his eyes as he rehooks the rope behind them, I can tell he’s just as over this life as I am, and I know before Marlene comes back with their drink order what it is I need to start making. The Velvet Rope Crowd, as we call them, have no idea how basic and predictable they are. 

I start to pour the ingredients needed for the newest and fruitiest concoction we have on the menu into two shakers, trying to knock out as many as I can at once, when something that resembles a breath of fresh air enters the bar and stands in the smallest of open spaces across from me. Remus. I’m almost too stunned by his sudden arrival to articulate anything other than, “Hey.”

“Hi,” he says back and smiles a smile that is brighter than the star I was named for. 

“What are you doing here?” I manage to ask as I begin to shake the cocktail shakers with both hands, eager to get these finished so that I can give him more of my undivided attention.

“I was in the neighborhood. Thought I’d see if you were working.”

“Were you across the street, where I saw you before?” I ask as I pour the drinks into their respective glasses and place them on a tray for Marlene to collect.

“In a way,” he says with a shrug of one shoulder. 

I place my hands on the bar and lean forward towards him to regard him more fully. “You are a bit of a conundrum, Remus Lupin.” 

“Really?” he asks with a wink. “Then I’m doing it right.”

I can't help but smile at him. His presence alone is enough to make me feel more alive than I have in ages. “Can I get you something?”

“No thanks. I just wanted to pop in.” He looks around at the space a bit dreamily. “See where it was that you worked.”

It makes me feel self-conscious and vulnerable in a way that no one else has managed to make me feel. Not James, not Lily, not Peter. Not even my parents who judged everything about me so harshly. But with Remus, I want him to be impressed with me, to like me, to take me seriously. And looking around, I no longer think that this place is going to do the trick.

“Don’t get too attached to it,” I say, pulling his attention back to me. 

“Oh yeah. Why is that?”

“Because I’m quitting at the first opportunity I get.”

He gives me a coy smile, as if he knows something that I don’t. 

_____

  
  


The rest of my shift goes by in a daze and I find it increasingly harder to focus on anything. I’m lost in my head and my thoughts, dreaming of Remus and another life, one that includes more of him in it. 

“Siiiriiius…” Marlene hums and effectively gets my attention. I look up at her and she’s smiling at me knowingly. 

“What?” I ask, a bit annoyed, not just at her knowing look, but that she broke me from the fantasy that I’ve been creating in my head. One where I hold Remus close against me. One where I kiss him and he kisses me back. It’s what I should have done before he left, instead of settling for a quick chaste kiss on the cheek. A kiss that I can still feel lingering there. I brush my fingers against the skin that his lips had briefly touched.

“Don’t _‘what’_ me,” she scolds. “You’re distracted. I need three pints for the blokes at table four.”

I look over to the table in question. Sure enough, three men are sitting there, two of them are staring lecherously at Marlene, the other one is regarding me curiously. He’s larger and burlier than the other two and he looks entirely out of place here. For some reason, I think I vaguely recognize him, but I can’t figure out from where. He notices me looking at him and intensifies his gaze to stare me down. It’s reminiscent of a dog standing its ground, vying for dominance. It eerily reminds me of my father, and I have a flash of this man standing in my father's office. I break the eye contact I was maintaining with him, reluctantly conceding my ground as I shake my head in an effort to rid my mind of memories of my father. If these two are connected somehow, I don’t think I want to know about it. 

Going back to the task at hand, I turn to the taps and pour three pints for Marlene. “Here,” I say as I pass them over then warn, “Be careful with that group.”

“Oh, I will,” she huffs out. “They’ve been complete wankers since they came in.”

I watch her nonchalantly, keeping my gaze obscured by my hair while I lean forward behind the bar pretending to clean glasses, as she brings them their drinks. She still has the undivided attention of the two, but the third keeps his eyes on me.

“It seems you have an admirer,” Kingsley says as he comes behind the bar to grab a bottle of water. He quirks an eyebrow at me. “Two in one night. Should we start keeping score?”

“Please no,” I say. I have zero interest in this other bloke and I’m pretty sure that his intentions for me are less than innocent and most likely nefarious.

“So they set your teeth on edge as well?” He leans forward to mimic my glass cleaning so we can talk more directly.

“Yes. You too?” I watch them out of the corner of my eye and see Marlene walking away from them and dramatically rolling her eyes.

“They came in shortly after the other guy left,” Kingsley points out.

“Did you check their ID’s?”

“Of course,” Kingsley scoffs. “They didn’t want to give them to me, but they didn’t have a choice.”

“Did you catch their names?” For some reason I can’t put my finger on my heart rate begins to pick up.

“Yeah. The smaller ones are brothers, last name Lestrange. The big one, he’s older. Names Fenrir Greyback.” 

My heart rate plummets. I do know this man, or I’ve at least heard mention of him from my father and the rest of the miscreants that do business with him. He’s muscle, or fixer of sorts. The kind of man who makes problems go away. 

_____

  
  


By the time noon rolls around Thursday and I’m due to meet Remus at the address that he had given me, I’m a bundle of raw nerves and expectations. Even after Kingsley had escorted Greyback and the Lestranges out of Divination last night, I was still on edge and that carried over into fitful sleep and vivid dreams of my life before I left my family. And, for whatever reason, I can’t seem to shake the suspicion that it’s all connected.

However, as I pull up to the address that Remus had given me and I see him standing there on the sidewalk with two paper cups of something steaming in his hands, I feel a calmness wash over me. He tips his head, bites his lip and holds one cup out to me as I approach after stepping off of my motorbike. 

“Hello again,” I say as I grab the proffered cup. The smell of hot chocolate wafts up to my nose. I take a deep sip and it warms me from head to toe. “So where are we going?”

He gestures towards a darkened door that’s nestled between what I’m assuming is the coffee shop he got our hot chocolates from and a bank. I can’t quite tell what it is until we get closer. On the door, written out in elegant gold leaf lettering, are the words Flourish & Blotts, and from looking through the glass, I can tell that they sell books. He pushes the door open and ushers me inside.

As I step through the doors, my eyes go wide. From outside, this place gave the impression that it was just going to be a narrow bookshop, something tight and wholly claustrophobic. Instead, its wide, wider than it should be, the ceilings are high and there is light impossibly streaming in from everywhere. I can’t quite tell where these windows are opening to, as this place is so tightly tucked into its little corner of London. But what’s probably the strangest thing of all are the people who are in here. Just like at the Leaky Cauldron, I’m struck with how out of place I feel amongst them, like we exist in two different times in two different ways. Yet Remus seems to fit right in inside both worlds. 

“What is this place?” I ask as I look around and try to take it all in. I’m startled as an owl swoops down and glides above me, just missing the top of my head by a hair. 

“It’s Flourish & Blotts,” he says cheekily and knocks his shoulder into mine.

“I got that,” I laugh. “I meant what _is_ this place.”

“Well, in its simplest terms, it’s a bookstore. One that I work at as a matter of fact,” he says proudly.

I look at him and take in the serene and happy smile that is on his face. It’s reached his eyes and has caused the scar on his nose to crinkle. In this place, at this moment, it’s the loveliest that I have ever seen him. I subtly grab at his hand and squeezes mine back.

“I thought you said you were a jack of all trades, taking odd jobs here and there,” I tease and look over my shoulder at him. He turns to look at me and the color has drained a bit from his face. I instantly feel bad for making the joke. I swallow quickly and speak again. “I much prefer the idea that your version of taking odd jobs includes harmless bookseller.”

He laughs a bit at that and the air around us lightens again. “I wouldn’t call it harmless. The written word has caused many controversies in its existence.” 

“Hmmm…” I hum as I continue to regard him and take in how lovely he is. “So what is it that we are doing here?”

“Hopefully giving you some answers,” he says and squeezes my hand again. His thumb runs back and forth across my knuckles. “And hopefully confirming that you are worth the effort and gamble that I thought you might be.

_____

  
  


If Remus thought that bringing me here was going to answer my questions instead of creating more, then he was wrong. My senses are overloaded with what is going on around me. The world seems off, brighter, clearer, bolder than it should be, but not in an artificial way. More in the sense that my world has been dulled up until this moment. Dulled up until Remus Lupin.

And maybe it has been. If a world like this has existed around me for my entire life and I missed it, then no wonder everything seems so fantastical now that I can see. Though I’m still not sure what it is that I am seeing. 

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Remus asks as he squeezes my hand and pulls me towards a tall aisle of books. The section marked Introduction to Magic. 

I look from the sign and back to him. _Magic_ , it would make sense. I’ve been saying and thinking that there is something magical about him since he first appeared, but to see the proof in writing that such a thing exists, suddenly makes it seem less plausible.

“What is it?” I ask.

“It’s what I am. Well, half of what I am.”

“How is it only half? And why have I never seen anything about this before? And why is it all coming together now? And just... Why?” I ask with all the questions pouring out of me in quick succession. 

This causes Remus to laugh and he lets go of my hand to grab a book off of the shelf. _Explaining Magic to the Unmagical._ He hands it to me and I frown, feeling slighted for my lack of abilities that I didn’t even know existed until moments ago.

“Don’t make that face,” he says and brushes my jaw with his fingertips. “It’s all very complicated and yet also quite simple.”

“Oh, like these riddles you keep talking in,” I accuse.

“I’m sorry about that,” he says and truly looks sincere. “I just didn’t know for sure.”

“For sure about what?”

“That you would understand. That you were ready.” He tilts his head to the side as if he’s contemplating something. “When you saw my scars and kept your head, I knew that I could trust you. That you were ready.”

“Ready for what exactly?”

“See that the world isn’t what it seems.” He sits on the floor and rests his back against the books on the opposite shelf, then motions for me to do the same. I don’t even hesitate, as I have to admit that he does have my attention. 

“Are you magic?”

“I am,” he says. “But I haven’t always been.”

“So there’s a way for me to be magic too?”

“There is, but I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“Why not?”

“Well, remember how I said that magic is half of what I am?”

“Yes.”

“The other half, and how I came to be magic, is a little more complicated.”

“How so?” I ask and grab his scarred hand with both of mine. The scar is no longer hidden and it makes his hand seem even slighter than it already had. I cradle it there in my grasp as I watch him gather his words. I can tell that he is nervous about whatever it is that he wants to say.

“I’m a werewolf, Sirius. Bitten and changed when I was five.” He pauses and looks right at me, his eyes glistening slightly. “That’s where all of this started.”

_____

  
  


I know that I should run as fast as I can away from him at his confession, but I can’t bring myself to do it. His words about me keeping my head in the face of his scars ring through me again and emphasize the point that whatever it is he tells me from here, changes nothing about the way that I feel for him. He’s beautiful and strange, and he appeals to all of my senses. 

Like my sense of touch that wants to reach for him right now. My sense of sight that wants to stare at him endlessly. My sense of smell that is ceaselessly drawn to him. My sense of taste that wants to explore every inch of him. My sense of hearing that wants to listen to him intently as he continues to tell me his story.

“I don’t really remember much about my life before it happened,” he says slowly and clearly. His voice is gentle and honey smooth and filled with resignation for the life that he was thrust into without his consent or desire to live it. “Just that I had a proper family, a mum, a dad. I don’t even know if they’re still alive.”

I let my hand reach out to him, to touch his face and reassure him that I am here and that I am listening, despite how confused and shaken I feel. 

“I remember my mother screaming, and my father desperately trying to pull himself away from the man that was restraining him, forcing him to watch as I was bitten.”

My heart aches at the visual that he is painting. It’s almost as if he’s projecting the memory directly to me, like some sort of mind reading, but reverse. I can see it clearly. A small golden haired boy watching his reflection in a mirror as a large wolf sinks its teeth into him. There’s screaming and yelling and crying, but it’s muffled, though powerful just the same.

“I passed out at some point and when I came to, I was in a different place, surrounded by different people. A man roughly picked me up off the ground where I was lying, introduced himself as Greyback and said I was his son now.” 

My breath hitches in my throat at the name and I watch as a single tear runs down Remus’s cheek. I reach for it and brush it away with my thumb then rest my palm against his face, cupping it gently. My other arm wraps around his body and I shift myself to take a hold of him. He clings to me and shakes a bit within arms. I wonder if he’s ever told anyone else about this. But the way the words and emotions have come tumbling out of him, I get the sense that I am the first that has heard this. 

He turns his head so that his lips are brushing my ear. I can feel the erratic puffs of his breath tickle at my hairline. 

“He led me to you,” he says quietly and shakily. “I’m supposed to turn you, but I can’t.”

_____

  
  


“Turn me?” I question a bit breathlessly. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” he says and pulls his head away from where it was nestled within the crook of my neck and shoulder. “You were meant to be my first mark.”

“Your first mark, what does that even mean?”

“It’s part of living in the pack. It’s what everyone’s always done to survive. Greyback works for a powerful man that I do not know and he pays Greyback to do his bidding.” 

I swallow thickly. I know who it is that Greyback works for. It’s my father. My stomach drops at the realization that he has put a hit out on me. And then I think back to Remus’s story, trying to piece together how it came to be that my father had originally gone after him twenty years ago. 

I guess it’s not that much of a stretch. James did say that he knew a Remus long ago, one that matches my Remus’s description. Perhaps his family had stature like ours once, had been part of the London elite. But why would my father have gone after a five-year-old? That seems uncommonly cruel, even for him. Perhaps there's another explanation. 

“I know Greyback,” I finally say. “He works for my father and he was at Divination the other night. Came in after you left.”

Remus goes ghost-white at this new information. “You’re not safe.”

“Well, I think we covered that when you said you were ordered to turn me.” I’m surprised at my joke, as this is not the time for joking. But it does earn me a pained smile from him. 

“I faked it.” His voice barely above a whisper. His eyes go almost inhumanly wide and he grabs onto my shoulders. “That first night you saw me.” His shifts to hold back the rising panic that I see in his eyes. “It was a full moon. I was supposed to get you then, but I couldn’t. That’s why I disappeared, seconds before I transformed. I killed a few rats instead, splattered their blood around the area. He never let on that he knew who you were.” 

“And now he knows you didn’t turn me,” I say and I feel hollow, empty and cold inside. But it’s not my life being in danger that is causing me to feel this way. It’s the realization that Remus is in danger as well. 

“You’re not safe,” he says again.

“And neither are you,” I point out.

“I never wanted to change anybody. I never wanted any of this,” his voice breaks and his eyes glisten.

He looks so innocent as he sits before me, a shadow of his childhood self from before all of this was put into motion. I grab ahold of him and pull him into my chest. I close my eyes and try to steady my breathing with him pressed against me.

“We’ll figure it out,” I say and cling a little harder to him. “But first, we need to get out of here. We need somewhere to hide.”

“Where can we go?” 

“I know a place,” I say and kiss the top of his head. He’s gonna be right pissed, but I know James will help us. 

_____

  
  


My knock is hard and quick in succession as I hammer at the door to the beat of my racing heart. I can hear footsteps shuffling on the other side and I let out a breath as James swings it open with a look of exasperation on his face.

“Gods, Sirius, I thought you were the cops,” he says and dramatically waves us in. He shuts the door and when he looks at Remus, there is no mistaking the recognition. 

Remus extends out his hand. “I’m Remus,” he says almost eerily calm. “Have we met before?”

“James,” he says as he grabs Remus’s hand. “And yes, when we were children. We used to play together.”

“James Potter,” Remus says. “I remember you. Well, I remember your hair mostly.” His eyes flit to James’s definingly unruly hair. His face breaks into a genuine smile. “Nice to see you haven’t changed.”

“You haven’t changed much yourself either,” James says, but I can see him looking at the scar that runs across Remus’s nose from cheek to cheek. Remus must notice it as well because he dips his head down. When he looks back up, it's gone, and I can’t help but laugh a bit at the look of abject confusion that washes over James’s face. 

“Now that introductions are over,” I say to break James of his thoughts. Remus’s disappearing scars, in the grand scheme of things, are about to be the least of his concerns. “We need your help.”

“How so?” He takes his eyes slowly from Remus and moves them to me. 

“Well, it seems that-,” 

“Our fathers, they knew each other,” Remus interrupts me and brings James’s attention back to him. “How?”

“I’m not sure.” James shrugs. “Business I would imagine. That’s really the only way my father knows anybody.”

“I don’t remember what my father did for a living,” Remus says and furrows his brow. “Or does, for that matter. If he’s still alive.”

I can hear James suck in a breath and I think back to what he had said a few days prior about Mr. Potter being broken up about what had happened to the Lupins. “Nobody knows what happened to you or your family,” James finally says. “But I remember that it was like all of you disappeared.”

“Do you think Greyback took your parents as well?” I ask Remus.

“It’s not likely, I’d have known if he had.”

“More importantly, why would he have gone after you?” I reach out to touch his arm and let my hand run down its length so I can grab ahold of his hand.

“I don’t know. But if he came on your father's orders, we might be asking the wrong question.”

“So what is the right question?”

“How are all three of us connected?” 

_____

  
  


“It’s not that the three of you are connected per se,” Mr. Potter says. We’re all seated around James and Lily’s dining room table, each with a warm mug of tea with a splash of whiskey to calm our nerves in front of us. 

Mr. Potter had arrived promptly after James had reached out to him. He must have sensed the urgency within James’s message, as he was a bit frenetic upon his arrival, quickly asking James if everything was okay before he took notice of mine and Remus’s presence. He greeted me warmly as he always does, and like James, when he saw Remus, it was like he had seen a ghost, and without an ounce of hesitation, he enveloped him into a hug. And now we are finally getting something that resembles an explanation. 

“I haven’t thought about all of this in ages,” Mr. Potter continues. “And I most certainly never imagined that I would find myself seated across from you, Remus, in the event that it was ever brought up again. I always assumed you were dead.”

“Why would you assume that?” Remus asks solemnly.

“After everything that happened and the state of your house, I just assumed the fire took you as well as your parents.”

“Fire?” Remus asks, confusion plain on his face. “I don’t remember a fire.”

I grab his hand and give it a gentle squeeze. I most likely understand less of what Mr. Potter is saying than he does, but it’s not lost on me that this is the kind of moment when one needs support. And I so desperately want to be the one who Remus can count on for strength and comfort. 

“Your house, it was completely destroyed. They weren’t even able to recover your parents' bodies from the wreckage and everyone just assumed you were in there as well.”

“That must have happened after I was taken,” Remus says quietly and lets out a heavy breath. 

“Where were you taken? And who took you?”

“Fenrir Greyback took me. I came to at his compound the next day.” Remus says this carefully and a bit robotically, and I can’t help but notice that he leaves out the detail about being bitten, about being a werewolf. I make a note of this to be careful of what I say, if and when I choose to speak.

“Greyback?” Mr. Potter exclaims. “He’s had you this whole time?”

“Wait, you know this man?” James asks, chiming in for the first time since his father started filling in the details. 

“Yes,” Mr. Potter says with a dejected nod of his head, his eyes flick to me and then immediately back to Remus. “I’ve met him. I never consorted with him, he’s a bit unsavory.” 

Remus scoffs at this. When I look at him he looks crestfallen, his face plainly saying what his lack of words don’t. Unsavory only scratches the surface of the kind of horrible man that Fenrir Greyback is.

Finally, I feel the need to speak, even though I don’t know if I really want to know the answer, and I’m afraid of what Remus will think of me when he hears it as well. “Where does my father fit into all of this?”

“Unfortunately, none of this would’ve happened if it wasn’t for your father, Sirius.” Mr. Potter turns and looks apologetically at me. “I never told you about any of this after we took you in, as I didn’t want to sully your opinion of your family more than it already was and I didn’t want to admit to myself the culpability I may have had in the downfall of the Lupins.”

“What do you mean by that?” Remus asks.

“Your father, Lyall, was quite the man, sought after by many for his skills in accounting. Myself included amongst those. Mrs. Potter and I grew close to him and your mother, they were pregnant at the same time you know, with you two boys,” he gestures between Remus and James, “being born within only a few weeks of each other.” He pauses and his face breaks out into a sad smile. “The two of you hit all of your milestones together, like brothers.” He looks at James and then myself as he says, “Not at all dissimilar to how you and Sirius are. But then one day, Lyall came to me inquiring about Orion Black, asking if I knew him. And knew him I did.” 

He pauses again and this time fixes me with a sad gaze. I nod my head in encouragement to him. It’s not as if anything he says about my father will really come as a surprise, I’m more than familiar with his ways and his cruelty, having experienced it first hand for the majority of my life.

“Your father had earned himself quite the reputation amongst Britain's elite. Known for being cunning, ambitious, and ruthless. Though none of us knew how ruthless he really was,” Mr. Potter says this with a heavy sigh. He swirls what’s left of the tea and whiskey in his mug then downs it. “It wasn’t until after he had decided to make an example out of Lyall Lupin that the rest of us split into two factions. Those who would continue to blindly follow him and take part in his shady business dealings, and those of us who saw him for the monster that he was. Someone who would order the murder of an entire family, to protect his fortune and keep Lyall from going to the authorities to report how filthy that fortune truly is.”

_____

  
  


I always knew that my father had come across his money by more than just luck. He’d taken the already ample Black Family fortune and expanded it beyond comprehension at a clip that was impossible for anyone who conducted their business with ethics or anything that resembled a proper moral code. But to find out that Remus’s entire life was irreparably altered because of him and and his ruthlessness is almost too much for me to bear. 

It’s hours after Mr. Potter has left and James and Lily have gone to bed, that Remus and I finally get a chance to be alone, and process what we have been told together. James has of course volunteered their guest room for us, and to Lily’s credit, she must have sensed the potency of the situation and didn’t question our need for a place to spend the night. 

With the moon high and the sun tucked away for the night, Remus and I lie side-by-side in the bed that would be comfortable for one, but is a bit too cozy for two. He turns on his side to face me.

“You know I don’t blame you, right?” he asks.

I turn to face him as well. “I know,” I say, though I still feel guilty. “It’s just hard to shake.”

“It is,” he agrees and reaches the few inches over to my side of the bed, landing his hand onto my waist. “I can’t help but feel like we’ve been intrinsically drawn together by it though.”

“How so?”  
  


“Well, it’s fitting really. Your father ordered the death of mine, and from what it sounds like, I was supposed to be included in that, except Greyback decided to make me one of his. And then when the time came and your death was also ordered, and Greyback decided he wanted to turn you instead, I was the one chosen to carry out the deed.” 

“But you didn’t,” I say and reach my hand to him. My palm cups his cheek and I stroke the delicate skin under his eye with my thumb, it comes away wet. 

“And I won’t,” Remus unnecessarily promises. I know in my heart of hearts that even if there weren't such strong feelings developing between us, he could never hurt me anyways, despite everything that has happened to him. “But I don’t know what to do next. You’re still in danger.”

“ _We’re_ in danger,” I correct and slide myself closer to him. I need him to know that we are in this together. He looks directly into my eyes and I can see the decades worth of sadness that has resided in him since he was bitten and ripped from the life and family he knew.

“But I’m not worth anything,” he says barely above a whisper. 

“You’re worth everything.”

“Am I?” he asks but doesn’t give me a chance to answer. “Look at the life I’ve had to lead, living within a pack that does nefarious deeds at a powerful man's bidding. That’s not a life worth saving.”

“You were thrust into that life by no choice of your own. You were only doing what you needed to survive. And now, you have the chance to change that.” He begins to move his hand away from my waist but I just move myself closer. “Remus, we can change all of this together.”

“How?” he asks. 

“By confronting my father,” I say. I can feel him tense beside me and I wrap both of my arms around him to hold him close. “It’s about time for me to face my own past anyways.”

As soon as I say it, I know it’s true. This listlessness that I have been existing in can not go on for any longer. Remus’s arrival in my life broke through the haze and relit a fire in me, and if I want to keep him and that fire burning, I can no longer run from my past, but confront it head on. 

_____

  
  


Waking the next morning proves to be more nerve-wracking than I would have imagined. Once Remus and I had concocted a plan, we both fell asleep within each others hold in the most intimate embrace I’ve ever been in without any actual intimacy. Not that I don’t want that, because I do, desperately. And I can’t hold myself back any longer once Remus reenters the bedroom. I immediately walk to him and don’t hesitate to pull him into my arms.

I feel him laugh into the crook of my neck and I bury my nose into his hair. The stakes are high today and we both know it, so I want to luxuriate in this last little moment of solitude that we have before we take the next harrowing step to finally take the reigns of our own existence. And if all goes according to plan we’ll be able to share the future together.

I pull slightly away and slide my hands up his body to cup his face between my palms. I tilt his head to look up at me and then lean down the few inches it takes to bring our lips together. He doesn’t seem the least bit surprised at the kiss and he’s quick to suck my lower lip in between both of his. His arms come to rest on my shoulders so that his hands can wrap around to the base of my neck. His grip is strong and reassuring, spurring me on to delve deeper into our exploration. 

By the time we break away from our kiss, I’m even more determined for today to be a success. I’d hate for us to be torn from each other just as we are getting started. And judging by the flushed look on Remus’s face, I can tell that he feels the same. 

“It’s gonna be okay,” I tell him with his face still cradles between my palms, his cheeks warm and heating my hands.

“I know,” he says, but the look on his face tells me that he doesn’t believe it. 

I can’t blame him. Everything that has happened since he and his family were ripped apart has proven to him that things are hardly ever alright. I want nothing more than to rectify that. Everything from this moment on is happening in an effort to change his life and mine as well while we’re at it. I place a gentle kiss onto his forehead before I dip down and kiss his lips again. 

“We should get going,” he says breathlessly when we pull apart and I nod my head in agreement. From here, everything changes.

_____

  
  


Walking into my father's office for the first time since I was sixteen years old is more of an empowering endeavor than I have ever imagined. It’s as if walking in with Remus at my side and the two of us determined to take our own fate into our own hands is enough to fill me with the resolve I need to face the man again. 

The look on his face as my cousin Narcissa— his secretary who appears equally as stunned— leads me into his office is one that I wish I would’ve been recording. We’d called ahead, told her that Remus Lupin, an associate of Greyback’s was on his way to discuss the completion of his assignment. It worked like a charm, giving my father the false assertion that his order to have me killed was followed through with and subsequently allowing us access to reach him. In retrospect, we should’ve known that there was no way it could ever be this easy. 

The look of abject surprise he is wearing when we first enter is very quickly replaced by one of malice, with a smug trace of superiority as if he knows something that we do not. Which, it is very likely that he does. 

“Sirius,” he says as we enter and looks me up and down. “Wasn’t expecting to ever see you again.”

“I know,” I say with confidence. Whatever happens from here, at least I can say that I was in control of it. “Especially considering you put a hit out on me.”

The look in his eyes says more than words can. They’re cold and calculating and look at me as if I mean nothing to him. And I can’t decide if that’s true or not, because if I really did mean nothing to him, why on earth would he want me dead? There has to be a reason for that. 

“It’s nothing personal Sirius, just trying to tie up some loose ends.”

“Nothing personal?” I question, my voice betraying any semblance of calm I may have felt upon our arrival.

“It was supposed to be quick and easy,” he says as he sits back in his chair and steeples his hands in front of him. 

“It shouldn’t have even been necessary,” I argue. “I haven't been a part of this family in almost a decade. Why couldn’t you just leave well enough alone.”

“Some things are changing and I could no longer afford to have any potential liabilities.”

“I promise you, I am not a liability for anything that you may have planned,” I scoff at his notion. Just like my mother, he could never understand that money doesn’t mean much of anything to me. I have far too much experience in how much misery and distrust it can breed inside of someone. And right now, he’s displaying how true my thoughts on this subject are.

“Be that as it may, I still can’t have you leaving this office today as if none of this has gone on.” He looks from me to Remus as he says this, implying that he means for both of us to be reminded of our place. 

I’m just about to question what he means to do with us when I hear Narcissa’s stilettos clacking on the floor behind us, along with the heavy thump of thick soled boots. I can feel Remus tense up beside me and I know without looking, before my cousin even gets a chance to announce him, that its Fenrir Greyback that is following her inside.

_____

  
  


He slips his hulking arm around Remus’s shoulders and I want to scream. I want to thrash about and destroy him, my father, and everything else inside of this office. Unfortunately, that is not an option. Not if I want for us to get out of here unscathed by our own power, instead of carried out and transported to our demise in the boot of Greyback’s car. 

“Oh, what a disappointment you turned out to be,” Greyback says. “I had such high hopes for you. But you just never quite took to it, did you?”

It’s less a question and more of a statement. Remus and I lock eyes as he bristles out from under Greyback’s arm. The sneer on Greyback’s face as Remus steps away from him and grabs my hand is terrifying.

“Should’ve known sending you after such an attractive mark would be your undoing,” Greyback says with so much malice it elevates the air in the room, emphasizing the stakes of the game that we are all playing.

“It didn’t matter who the mark was,” Remus says. I can feel him mustering up all of his confidence beside me, and I’m completely in awe of him for it. “I’m not like you.”

“That’s for sure,” Greyback scoffs. 

“Enough of this,” my father finally says, his impatience clear in his voice. “From where I sit, all three of you are disappointments.” Greyback opens his mouth to argue, but is quickly cut off. “I should rid myself of the lot of you.”

I discreetly check my watch as my father fixes all of us with his most malevolent gaze. He’s forgetting one important thing, that even though I’d long ago been cast aside by him and my mother, they had taught me some important skills. To always be prepared, never reveal your hand, and keep an ace in your backpocket. I listen intently as that ace begins to pound up the stairs, ride up the elevator and circle the block with sirens blazing. 

My father hears it too. He narrows his eyes at me. “What did you do?”

“It’s not what I did,” I say casually. “It’s what you did. What you’ve been doing all along.”

At my words, I see something I never thought I ever would, fear washes over my father’s face. Genuine real fear, like a hunter caught inside his own trap. He must know what’s coming for him, but I doubt he even realizes the full extent of what I have against him.

Greyback, like the coward that he truly is at his core when there isn’t a full moon in the sky to back him up, turns to flee. He’s quickly thrown to the ground by three officers who have popped onto the scene out of thin air. Aparrating, Remus had called it. He gives my hand a firm squeeze, saying what he can’t, which is thank you.

Although I should be thanking him. Between his statement to the authorities this morning and his journals that were fished out of their hiding spaces under the floorboards of Greyback’s compound- they held an accurate and incredibly detailed account of everything Greyback had ever ordered his _pack of werewolves_ to do, and should be enough to rid us of any worries of direct retribution. 

Mr. Potter is who I need to thank in regards for putting the final nail in the proverbial coffin for my father. After years of staying silent in an attempt to avoid having the fate of the Lupins fall onto him and his family as well, we’d managed to convince him that it was time to come forward with everything that he knew about the way Orion Black conducted his business. He was able to provide the powers at be with everything that they needed to throw the book at my father. 

I continue to hold Remus’s hand as we watch my father get cuffed and hauled silently and stoically out of his office. Once he’s in the elevator - surrounded by six armed men - and the doors close, I finally turn and pull Remus into my arms. He leans heavily against me, his hands covering his face. I can feel him shuddering a bit in my arms, but without being able to see his face, I can’t tell if he’s laughing or crying. 

I suspect it’s the latter. How could it not be? Sure this was a significant moment for me, but for Remus, this was the marking of his life being altered beyond recognition again. At least this time it’s moving towards something better, and it’s my intention to help him navigate everything that is abruptly changing. 

I’d be lying if I didn’t say that it was scary. But now I have a whole new world to learn about and the most magnificent man at my side to show it to me. 

“It’s gonna be alright, Remus,” I say, my lips hovering just over his ear. 

He slides his hands away from his face and snakes them around my torso. When he looks up at me with wet cheeks and coy grin, I know I am completely besotted, there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for him at this moment and everyone after. He rises up onto his tiptoes and kisses me soundly. The kiss tells me everything that I never knew I needed to know, which is that with this man in my arms, anything and everything is possible. There truly is magic in the world, and I’m not referring to the magic that he can perform.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and kudos are appreciated! If you haven’t already, come find me on tumblr @kattlupin for more Wolfstar fun. 💛


End file.
